The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has promulgated a family of standards for high performance serial buses (also referred to here as “IEEE 1394”). The IEEE 1394 family of standards includes IEEE Std. 1394-1995, the IEEE Std. 1394a-2000 amendment (also referred to here as “IEEE 1394a”), and the IEEE Std. 1394b-2002 amendment (also referred to here as “IEEE 1394b”). However, typical networks that implement such IEEE 1394 standards may not be suitable for some applications that require a high degree of fault tolerance and/or deterministic communication (for example, in systems that control and/or monitor vehicles such as aerospace vehicles).